Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Julietta Gervase

Constructor: Julietta Gervase

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Theme answers are flowers, clued wackily

Theme answers:

BABY'S BREATH (20A: What might smell of Gerber products?)
WOLF'S BANE (33A: The third "little pig," with his house of bricks?)
GOLDENROD (40A: Award for a champion angler?)
LADY SLIPPER (50A: Object found by Prince Charming after the clock struck midnight?)

Word of the Day: PINYIN (44A: Chinese transliteration system) —

Hanyu Pinyin (simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: hànyǔ pīnyīn), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese form, to learners already familiar with the Latin alphabet. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, but pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written in the Latin script, and is also used in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The word Hànyǔ (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語) literally means "Han language" (i.e. Chinese language), while Pīnyīn (拼音) means "spelled sounds".^[1]

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION*** (if it's mid-January 2023, that's you!) How is the new year treating you? Well, I hope. Me, uh, not great so far (COVID, you know), but I'm 95% better, and was never terribly sick to begin with, so I have every reason to believe things will turn around for me shortly, thank God (and vaccines). Anyway, it's early January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. I'm not sure what to say about this past year. This will sound weird, or melodramatic—or maybe it won't—but every time I try to write about 2022, all I can think is "well, my cat died." She (Olive) died this past October, very young, of a stupid congenital heart problem that we just couldn't fix (thank you all for your kind words of condolence, by the way). I'm looking at the photo I used for last year's fundraising pitch, and it's a picture of me sitting at my desk (this desk, the one I'm typing at right now, the one I write at every day) with Olive sitting on my shoulder, staring at me, and making me laugh. It's a joyous picture. Here, I'm just gonna post it again:

I love the photo both because you can tell how goofy she is, and how goofy she made me. Her loss hurt for the obvious reasons, but also because she was so much a part of my daily routine, my daily rhythms and rituals. She was everyday. Quotidian. Just ... on me, near me, being a weirdo, especially in the (very) early mornings when I was writing this blog. She took me out of myself. She also made me aware of how much the quotidian matters, how daily rituals break up and organize the day, mark time, ground you. They're easy to trivialize, these rituals, precisely because they *aren't* special. Feed the cats again, make the coffee again, solve the crossword again, etc. But losing Olive made me reevaluate the daily, the quotidian, the apparently trivial. In a fundamental way, those small daily things *are* life. No one day is so important, or so different from the others, but cumulatively, they add up, and through the days upon days you develop a practice—a practice of love, care, and attention given to the things that matter. If you're reading this, then crossword puzzles are undoubtedly an important ritual for you, just as writing about crosswords for you all is an important ritual for me. It gives me so much. I hope that even at my most critical, my genuine love for crosswords—for the way my brain lights up on crosswords—comes through. I also hope that the blog brings you entertainment, insight, laughter ... even (especially) if you disagree with me much (most? all?) of the time.

[man, I really wear the hell
out of this red fleece...]

The blog began years ago as an experiment in treating the ephemeral—the here-today, gone-tomorrow—like it really mattered. I wanted to stop and look at this 15x15 (or 21x21 thing) and take it seriously, listen to it, see what it was trying to do, think about what I liked or didn't like about it. In short, I gave the puzzle my time and attention. And I continue to do that, every day (Every! Day!). And it is work. A lot of work. Asking for money once a year (and only once a year) is an acknowledgment of that fact. There is nothing to subscribe to here ... no Substack or Kickstarter or Patreon ... and there are no ads, ever. I prefer to keep financial matters simple and direct. I have no "hustle" in me beyond putting my ass in this chair every morning and writing.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. My daughter (Ella Egan) has designed a cat-related thank-you postcard for 2023, just as she has for the past two years, but this year, there's a bonus. Because this year ... the postcard is also a crossword puzzle! Yes, I made a little 9x9 blog-themed crossword puzzle for you all. It's light and goofy and I hope you enjoy it. It looks like this (clues blurred for your protection):

I had fun making this puzzle (thanks to Rachel Fabi and Neville Fogarty for proofing it for me!). For non-snail-mailers who want to solve the puzzle, don't worry: I'll make the puzzle available for everyone some time next month. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

• • •

Hello hello! It's Rafa here filling in for Rex Parker. Sometimes when I finish solving a puzzle I think: This puzzle was great, but it wasn't for me! This puzzle was very much in that category! When I finished solving, I couldn't quite figure out what the theme was so I googled the theme answers and realized they were all flowers. Aha! The fact that I knew 0/4 of these flowers says a lot more about me than about the puzzle, but unfortunately it did make it so the theme didn't feel quite satisfying during the solve. I wonder if I'm a flower-illiterate odd-one-out, or whether this theme eluded others too ... let me know in the comments!

As for the theme clues, they felt like a bit of a mixed bag to me. WOLF'S BANE was my favorite -- fun and evocative and just the right amount of wacky. BABY'S BREATH felt a bit weaker because it seems like "baby's breath" could quite plausibly be a phrase used to describe ... a baby's breath. So the wackiness didn't land as nicely.

According to The Internet™, these are some Viking runes

Luckily, though, there was plenty of other fun stuff in the grid: HOUSE PARTY, EVIL GENIUS, PAST LIFE, PINYIN, etc. I appreciated the clue echo on RAGER and HOUSE PARTY, as well as the fun trivia in the clue for ANTEATER. The fill was mostly clean but there were a few dings like SHER, NEHI, CIRRI. (I have only ever seen or heard of NEHI in crossword puzzles and just found out 30 seconds ago it's pronounced "knee high" -- FYI if that's also news to you.) A "ding" in the fill is subjective thing, but one metric I like to use when thinking about fill for early-week puzzles is: Is this something solvers would reasonably have encountered outside of crossword puzzles? Of course, we all live wonderfully diverse lives, but have any of you had a conversation about CIRRI clouds?

Check out these CIRRI clouds

Not much else to say about this one! Nice and mostly smooth early-week debut.

Bullets:

HANOI (45D: Home to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum) — I have been to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in HANOI!
AREA (8D: Word with gray, play, or Bay) — This was a fun clue for AREA. I've lived in the Bay AREA for 9 years and appreciated this angle.
SAUL (47A: Title role for Bob Odenkirk in a "Breaking Bad" spinoff) — My confession for today is that I haven't watched a single episode of Breaking Bad! I feel like there's too much to catch up on and I never have the willpower to start it, but everyone always tells me it's worth it. One day...
ETTA (54A: James in both the Blues and Rock & Roll Halls of Fame) — My good friend and longtime crossword solver told me recently she only just realized all the clues about this Jazz star James were about a woman named Etta James and not about some dude named James Etta! So this is a PSA to anyone else who mindlessly fills ETTA thinking it's some dude.

Signed, Rafa

[Follow Rafa on Twitter]